Big Blue View
I’m not a bettor, but if there was a prop bet for which NFL game would be the 2025 game of the year, I’d guess not many people would have placed money on a Week 2 clash between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys. Nonetheless, that may be what we just witnessed. Of course, it’s heartbreaking when the Giants come out on the short end of one of these spectacles, especially when they had the ball after an overtime defensive stop, only needed to drive for a field goal to win, and instead chose that time for their two worst offensive plays of the game.
Let’s see what we learned from this latest Giants loss.
After last week, Russell Wilson looked as if the end was near. He was getting pressure, looked skittish in the pocket, was not accurate when he did throw, and forgot that he built his passing reputation on the deep ball. The thinking was that another game like that in Dallas, and we might see Jaxson Dart sooner rather than later.
Well, we did see Jaxson Dart, sooner than any of us probably expected, but only for a few decoy plays. What we got, though, was a 30-for-41, 450-yard performance that was second in yards only to a 452-yard effort against Houston in 2017.
Maybe it’s no surprise, given the Giants’ dual deep threats, Malik Nabers and…Wan’Dale Robinson? I (and I think most everyone else) have been skeptical of the idea that Robinson could be anything more than a short-to-intermediate range receiver. Sunday, though, he caught one for 50 yards, another for 25, and then a third for 32 yards and a TD that briefly put the Giants back in the lead in the fourth quarter. He caught 8 of 10 targets for 142 yards.
Nabers, not to be outdone, had 9 receptions in 13 targets for 176 yards, including 29 and 48 yard TD catches. Darius Slayton seems to have become the forgotten man, with only one target last week and only three this week with 2 receptions, albeit one of them for 52 yards.
The bad news was that Russ imploded late in OT, first throwing an ill-advised backwards pass to Devin Singletary that had to be retrieved for a big loss, and then following that with a “bad-moon” ball that Donovan Wilson intercepted. With Brandon Aubrey’s amazing leg, it was only a matter of a few plays before the Giants were sent to defeat in a game they could have, maybe should have, won.
This was a painful loss. Still, I’ll take it over the pathetic product the Giants put on the field against Washington. Dallas isn’t winning anything this year, but they gave the Eagles all they could handle in their first game.
The real reason the Giants lost this game was their pathetic offensive performance in the red zone. They were...
